Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post new content on a regular basis to automatically begin attracting new traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of this process. You will learn what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can automatically get new visitors when you begin to publish new content on your website.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any opportunity you can to improve your performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is extra work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is going well in the gizmo-making assembly line when things come to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what went wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrives shortly afterward and goes directly to the main control box. After staring at the box for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a gentle tap near the bottom-left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, every machine returns to normal.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
Bewildered, the manager dials the expert. Why did he charge them such a ridiculously high fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for spending years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP blog set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although many experts often make complicated solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to get specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything works as envisioned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not just about installing a plugin, configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web server, your site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
External Sites And Accounts – Configuration
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your business will receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and online services will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to help save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account with Google Search Console have been set up, your details can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, traffic tracking code can be added to WordPress via a plugin and and sent to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account has been set up, use this information to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
Set up profiles with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are many different solutions you can add to your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to get the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs linked to from your content, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable your site to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks, see this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WP Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely immune from cyber-attacks.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
More info:
- Prevent Hackers From Finding & Attacking Your Web Sites With Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily using WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Settings
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Tags And Categories
Post categories and post tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(Post categories help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Only search engine bots can understand an XML sitemap. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is post content regularly to automatically generate more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take some web professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively using a WordPress website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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